External Post-Graduate Public Interest Fellowships

MULTI-STATE

Remote - offices in Nashville, DC, New York, Denver

The chosen candidate will work with ABB to create and submit a project proposal to fellowship funders. Although we are open to developing a project in any area of ABB’s work, we are particularly seeking candidates to collaborate on projects that fall within the following areas:

• Enforce the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA).
• Enforce and support public education on New York’s Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI) and Paid Family Leave (PFL) programs. 

Priority deadline varies by state

Each of these offices generally focuses on the issues identified above, but also focus on the following specific issues areas:

• Illinois: Pretrial justice, challenges to police misconduct and abuse, challenges to solitary confinement and other prison conditions, and parole and post-release deincarceration efforts
• Missouri: Prisoners’ rights, extreme sentencing of youth, parole and community supervision, environmental racism, wrongful convictions
• Washington, D.C.: Prisoners’ rights, policing, excessive sentences, state constitutional protections

Alaska

The ACLU of Alaska is especially interested in applicants seeking to pursue fellowships to address any of the following areas:

• Criminal Legal Reform/Conditions of Confinement. Fellows are welcome to apply who are passionate about advocating for constitutionally adequate conditions of confinement in Alaska state prisons and other issues related to criminal legal reform, including access to counsel and issues facing the large pre-trial population in Alaska. More information about the priority areas of the ACLU-AK’s prison work can be found here.
• Behavioral Health. Alaska’s constitution includes unique provisions requiring the legislature to “provide for the promotion and protection of public health” and to “provide for public welfare.” We invite fellowship projects that propose giving these provisions enforceable meaning, especially as to unmet behavioral and mental health needs throughout the state.
• Queer & Trans Justice. Fellows are welcome to apply who are passionate about advancing and protecting the rights of LGBTQIA2S+ Alaskans. The ACLU-AK has a long history of supporting and defending the rights of LGBTQIA2S+ Alaskans. Most recently, this has included litigation advocating for the rights of transgender students in Alaskan schools and Know-Your-Rights series for our state-wide community. More information about the Queer and Trans Justice Program can found here.

Arizona

Colorado

We welcome applicants who are interested in shaping and co-designing a project with us. There is no
need to have a fully developed proposal before reaching out. Big picture, this project could focus on:

• Partnering with jurisdictions in the greater Denver metro to establish and operate a recurring legal eviction clinic for tenants facing housing instability
• Developing a “Lawyer for a Day” courthouse program to provide limited-scope legal assistance and representation to tenants navigating eviction proceedings
• Creating partnerships with community organizations to deliver accessible know-your-rights trainings on housing and eviction law to vulnerable populations
• Expanding access to legal information and representation for tenants in underserved communities and legal deserts
• Supporting highly vulnerable tenant populations, including seniors, families with young children, survivors of domestic violence, immigrants, and individuals with disabilities
• Advancing innovative and community-centered approaches to eviction prevention and housing stability
• Strengthening partnerships among courts, legal services organizations, and community-based organizations to increase access to justice for tenants
• Gathering and analyzing data on tenant needs, service delivery, and eviction outcomes to inform evidence-based interventions, strengthen program effectiveness, and support long-term housing stability efforts

Delaware

Florida

Georgia

Idaho

Illinois

Kansas

Louisiana

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Mississippi

Missouri

deally, fellows will work in at least one of our Legal Programs listed below.

• Worker Power Program: Building advocacy programs and impact litigation on behalf of low-wage workers. This work will include developing cases involving wage theft, unlawful termination, and other workplace violations, supporting worker organizing efforts, conducting outreach and know-your-rights education, and helping build strategic litigation designed to improve conditions for low-wage workers broadly. 
• Safe Homes Program: Supporting advocacy efforts related to uninhabitable living conditions. This work will include developing impact litigation, class actions, and demand letters to ensure families across Missouri have access to safe and healthy homes.  
• Stable Home Program: Contributing to advocacy focused on preserving stable, affordable housing and preventing displacement. This work will include collaborating with partner organizations to develop broader outreach and advocacy strategies that address systemic housing issues affecting low-income tenants. 
• Eviction Defense Program: Direct representation of individuals and families facing eviction.  

New Jersey

New York

AALDEF is interested in fellowship proposals on Immigrant Rights, especially if focused on communities with heightened vulnerabilities for deportation such as Southeast Asian refugees; and Anti-Asian Targeting, Surveillance, and Racial Profiling.

AALDEF is also open to proposals that identify emerging challenges for marginalized populations within Asian American communities, and innovative proposals that center coalitional strategies to empower groups to protect their communities from harassment, displacement, and inequality

To work as Bronx Defenders Legal Fellows, candidates will develop project proposals for submission to Equal Justice Works, Skadden, and similar programs, as well as law-school specific fellowships, to do legal work in one of our practice areas while remaining flexible to change based on the needs of our organization and the community we work with. The Fellowship would begin in the Fall of 2027 and run for one or two years, depending on the terms of the funder. Examples of successful fellowship proposals from prior years include:

• Developing a program to help people litigate in small claims court if they suffered injuries or other damages in encounters with the police (Skadden Fellowship)
• Ending New York’s practice of suspending the driver’s licenses of individuals who cannot afford to pay traffic tickets through direct representation, litigation, and legislative advocacy (Equal Justice Works Fellowship)
• Providing direct representation to fathers in neglect, abuse, and termination of parental rights proceedings, as well as conducting Know Your Rights As Fathers trainings to prevent the unnecessary disruption of the father-child relationship and reduce children’s placement in foster care (Skadden Fellowship)
• Registering New Yorkers under parole supervision to vote and enforcing the new parole enfranchisement law through litigation, education, and advocacy while working towards universal suffrage through legislative advocacy (Equal Justice Works Fellowship)
• Providing direct representation to individuals experiencing employment discrimination due to criminal convictions by offering assistance in obtaining Certificates of Rehabilitation as well as educating employers and community groups about the employment rights of formerly incarcerated people (Skadden Fellowship)

North Carolina

While we are open to proposals in any of our areas of work, LANC is especially interested in applicants seeking to pursue fellowships to address the following areas:

• Fair housing - expand capacity to pursue fair housing claims/defenses and reasonable accommodations in eviction and habitability cases at the local level. This fellow would join our Fair Housing Project in Durham. 
• Immigration – increase access to immigration relief for underserved survivors of violence, using community-based strategies, digital access platforms, or some combination. This fellow would join our Immigration Pathways for Victims (IMMPAV) project in Raleigh or Charlotte and must have strong written and spoken Spanish language skills. 
• Lumbee federal recognition – focus on legal developments resulting from federal recognition of the Lumbee Tribe and work to ensure access to justice for members of this community. This fellow would join our Fayetteville office. 
• Farmworker rights - assist migrant farmworkers in North Carolina to assert their rights under our state and federal anti-trafficking laws. This fellow would join our Farmworker Unit in Raleigh and must have strong written and spoken Spanish language skills. 

Ohio

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Potential projects under consideration include:

• Oppose discriminatory school policies targeting transgender and queer students, book bans, classroom censorship and hostile school environments (including due to peer harassment) through direct representation, local and state advocacy, systemic reform, and community organizing support
• Challenge discriminatory school rules and exclusionary discipline that reinforce racism, ableism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia (including virtual exclusion, expulsion, failure to provide due process, and failure to consider qualifying disabilities), through individual representation and systemic advocacy to promote restorative and non-punitive alternatives
• Dismantle the policies and practices that lead to push out of Black and Brown children and families, including, summary offenses, criminalization through truancy referral, caregiver exclusion, and/or discriminatory schoolbased fines and fees
• Reduce education barriers and promote effective and responsive models for students who need mental health and behavioral health supports in schools and/or other supportive measures in school, with a focus on Black girls and LGBTQ-identified young people
• Promote equal access to a quality education for students in foster care and juvenile justice systems through representation and systemic advocacy
• Protect the rights of immigrant students by challenging discriminatory practices and schools’ failure to provide newly arrived immigrants and multilingual learners with effective language instruction as required by federal law, and promoting welcoming schools policies to mitigate any harm from ICE interaction with schools
• Ensure that students with chronic or acute illnesses have access to education by advocating for individual students and eliminating barriers created by ableist policies and practices

South Carolina

Tennessee

Texas

Vermont

Virginia

Washington

Washington, DC

the Fellow will both work on existing cases and focus on their fellowship project to advance the body of law for incarcerated people. Our staff will work with candidates to develop their proposals to external funders for submission, helping tailor the proposal to address an important civil liberties issue for incarcerated people. Proposed projects often combine litigation and advocacy with community outreach and public education.  NPP has identified the following issues as priority project proposal topics, but we are open to hearing candidates’ alternative project ideas:    

• Litigation and advocacy to move people with mental illness who have been found incompetent to stand trial out of jails. 
• Litigation and advocacy challenging the use of non-traditional structures (for example, office buildings, converted warehouses, tents, military barracks) to incarcerate and detain people. 
• Litigation and advocacy challenging carceral systems’ widespread and unregulated use of private transport companies to move incarcerated and detained people across the country and around the world.